EpiloguePrologue
by Mistress Scribbles
Summary: Being an epilogue to the cartoon adventures of 'Dungeons & Dragons', and a prologue to 'The Call Home' & subsequent adventures by one Mistress R. Scribbles. A short story in three parts where home is not all as it was promised to be...
1. Epilogue

Epilogue

_Haiku 16_

_I am a fireball -_

_White hot center of their pain._

_I have brought Hell home._

- Excerpt from the journal of Eric Montgomery.

Boots. Shirt. Pants. Curtain. Shower.

He found himself standing still, squinting at the shower controls.

_You haven't forgotten how to use the shower, have you?_

He shook himself out of it. Of course he hadn't forgotten. He turned the control to 'hot', only to fall into another trance as the hot water and steam covered his body. The events of that day began to swirl around his brain yet again. It had been a long day, in so many ways. He had to remind himself that it had been a good 48 hours since he'd slept. Since then, he'd ran and fought and ran and fought and ran, and finally, finally got what he'd thought he wanted. But that wasn't what bothered him now. It was what had happened after that.

('Augh God! I'm burning!' 'That bastard! How could he?')

He pushed his stinking, greasy hair under the streaming water and drowned the screams out of his ears. The smell of soap took him back to the hospital.

There had been tears. Tears of joy, at first, on seeing their families again. Then their parents had wanted them to go home with them, and things had turned nasty. Sheila and Bobby hadn't put up much of a fight, especially after he and Diana had said that they'd stay, but Presto's parents had been forced to drag him away, kicking and screaming. In the end his own parents had given him money for a taxi and told him if he was back by 8, there'd be a hot meal waiting for him. Then it was just him and Diana, sitting in the waiting room, pacing, getting sodas and coffees, flicking through magazines without reading any of the words. They'd only spoken twice.

'TV,' Diana had said, gazing blankly at the flickering screen.

'Huh,' he had replied.

'It's still May,' he'd said about an hour later, glancing at a newspaper.

'Mmm,' she had replied.

When the nurse had finally appeared, she hadn't seemed too thrilled that they were still there.

'I thought you kids were going home?' she'd said, more an accusation than a suggestion.

'How is he?' Diana had asked, standing.

'His Dad still isn't here,' he'd interjected over her, despite himself, and to his embarrassment, the nurse had addressed him rather than the young woman at his side.

'It doesn't make any difference,' the nurse had told him, 'he's got no clue of what's going on.'

'Can we see him?' Diana had said, quickly, wringing her hands a little.

The nurse had finally looked at the tall girl.

'Like I said, it makes no di...'

'Please?' Diana had asked.

The nurse had frowned. 'What are you, his girlfriend?'

Diana had blinked for a split second, then lied. 'Yes.'

The nurse had sighed. 'Five minutes.'

All he remembered about those five minutes were the eyes. Not the drips or the machines or the size of the dressing on the other boy's back, but his eyes! God! Open but unseeing, full of pain, but slow and docile and complacent, like a mistreated donkey.

'What's wrong with him?' Diana had asked, shakily, not noticing that the bedridden boy's lips were moving.

He had filtered out the other nurse telling Diana that Eric was on a lot of painkillers, but was stable and... what was that word they'd used?... 'comfortable', and leaned in close to the darker boy.

'...v'ruined it now...' the voice had slurred almost impercievably, '...pissed in y'r porridge...'

'This isn't your fault,' he'd whispered in reply.

'...Bast'd couldn't a jus' killed me...'

He'd found a sad smile playing around his lips, but the other boy wasn't joking.

'Now that would have _really_ put a dampener on our day', he'd answered at last, as cheerfully as he could.

He had a vague memory of Eric's father arriving, a good four hours after he'd been informed that his only child had been found, badly burned, after an absence of nearly 24 hours. He had swept in, all mouth and Armani, a latte in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, saying something about cancelling all the private investigators he'd hired since his son's failure to return home the previous night, and something else about 'galavanting' and 'bad influences', with a dirty look turned to the two remaining adventurers, lingering particularly on Diana. The next thing he knew, the two of them were leaving the hospital.

They had walked in silence to the main doors, then stood there together, unwilling to split up and make the last part of their journeys home on their own. He had stood for what seemed like forever, watching Diana watching her feet, waiting for the inevitable drip of tears to fall, twinkling, to the ground.

And when they'd come, he'd allowed her to take her time, neither holding her close nor walking away.

'Did you see his eyes?' she'd sighed, eventually, 'that wasn't him. That wasn't my Eric.'

_My Eric?_

It hadn't been the time to pick her up on her little slip. Besides, she was still talking.

'He'd lost his fire. It wasn't him. What's happened to him?'

She had started crying harder.

'Hey,' he'd said, 'Hey. It was him. He told me he was sorry he'd pissed in our porridge.'

Diana had snorted a laugh through her tears.

'Doesn't that sound like him to you?'

Diana had nodded, and smiled, and then broken down entirely, howling in his arms.

He switched off the shower. He wasn't imagining things. Somebody was still crying.

It had terrified him that evening, having that headstrong, independent young woman turn into a sobbing jelly as he held her, feeling her knees buckle under her, failing to hold her upright and sinking with her to the ground as she passed out, then came to, then wept like an infant yet again.

He reached for a towel. There was definitely a woman crying. Downstairs. He couldn't help himself, but switched automatically into Ranger mode, lying swiftly and silently down own his front, pressing his ear against the bathroom floor. He could just about make out his parents' voices.

'...don't care if it doesn't make any sense, Peter. I'm telling you, he's different.'

'Different how?'

'Jesus Christ, Pete, did you even look at your son this afternoon? He's lost weight. He's gained muscle and I swear to God he's grown four inches at least. You saw the O'Brian kids, they're the same!'

'That's impossible, Helen. They were only gone a day and a night. They were stuck on that ride. That's all.'

'We spent all last night at that damn fairground!' His mother's voice was a shrill, tense squeak. 'Nobody there knew where they were and certainly nobody knew anything about a broken down ride.'

His father didn't answer.

'And what about that other girl?' continued his mother, 'the one with the dog? Her dad hadn't even noticed she was gone but she said she'd been lost for days. And how the Hell do you explain what they were wearing? Underage girls and an eight year old boy dressed obscenely, frankly, and I don't know what whoever dressed our boy was thinking...'

'You don't think somebody did this on purpose...?' started his Dad.

'I don't know, Peter!' interrupted his mother, 'All I know is that yesterday morning I had a healthy, happy boy, and now in his place is this grown up stranger who looks and smells like he's been to Hell and back...'

His mother's voice broke under the strain of the tears.

'Helen...' muttered his father in soft, reassuring tones. 'Hey. Hey, we're the lucky ones. Our kid went missing, but now he's back, and he's in one piece. There's people not a million miles away from here who can't say that tonight.'

('I'm burning!')

He pushed himself away from the floor. He didn't want to be reminded of how relatively unscathed he had escaped the Realm.

The voices stopped once he opened the bathroom door. He went to his room, locked the door and put the radio on. Still the same dumb tunes they had hummed to themselves for the last year or so to keep their spirits up. Funny, even after meeting Whittiker he'd somehow expected that the Earth would still carry on without him, for new music to be written, new movies shot, for his classmates to grow into adults just like that crazy bunch of kids he'd dragged around Loonyland for God knows how long. He saw the pile of clothes on his bed and smiled. Good old Dad. He had, indeed, noticed how much bigger his son had grown, and had left some of his own jeans and T shirts to save him the embarrassment of trying to squeeze himself into some of the clothes that had fit him the day before. He didn't bother dressing now. He needed to sleep.

He looked briefly out of his bedroom window before drawing his curtains. There were no windows undraped in the top floor of the house opposite. He guessed Bobby and Sheila must have already gone to bed.

He was going to tell her. There was nothing holding him back now. He was going to tell her. Planning how he was going to tell her once he was home had been all that had kept him going through some of his darker hours. He was going to pick a perfect day, and take her for a walk, and tell her. He drew the curtains and went to his bed. And if the others teased him, then they teased him. And if it made them feel weird, then it made them feel weird. He was going to do something for himself for once, Dammit!

Dammit! Why was he feeling so angry all of a sudden?

He eased himself into his soft, warm, clean bed, and was surprised at the difficulty he found in getting comfortable.

A strange state took him, not wakefulness, but not exactly sleep either, despite his exhaustion. Troubled thoughts prickled his mind, memories merging into nightmares and then becoming true memories again. In the nightmares, a child began to wail in the distance. It took him a while to realise that he was fully awake, and the that the faint cry was real. Through the chink in his curtains, he saw the lights being switched on in the O'Brian house over the road. Still Bobby screamed, wordless with terror. He pulled his blankets over his head as Sheila's cries rose to meet her brother's.

He crawled down under his sheets, forming a foetal ball at the foot of his bed.

Somebody else was crying. A man, close by, sobbing with an increasing desperation. It reminded him of Diana, earlier that night. He recognised the voice somehow, twisted with horror though it was.

His knees were wet. So was his face.

Shit! It was him!

He was finally breaking. And he couldn't stop. He rocked and remembered everything, all the times he'd wanted to be able to let go and curl up and cry. He made up for all those times now. He could feel it leaving him, all the restraint, all the responsibility. It was unravelling and pouring out of him with his tears. It was leaving him. The Ranger was leaving him. And as much as he was going to miss it, he never wanted to feel it ever, ever again.

He let it go that night.

His parents didn't go to wake him the next day, nor did they go to work themselves. Helen baked bread and cakes, filling the house with comforting, homely smells, and Peter went into the garden, painting the fence and making Dad Noises. The phone rang occasionally, usually well wishers or school friends. They only took messages when they were important, but didn't bother their son with them while he remained in his room. At about four o'clock, Peter finished the fence and went indoors. Frances O'Brian was in the kitchen, looking frailer and paler than ever, sharing a pot of coffee with his wife. There were bags under her eyes and she was trembling slightly.

'Hey, Frances,' he murmured, patting his neighbour gently on the shoulder, 'another tough night, huh?'

'I hope we didn't disturb any of you,' whispered Frances, 'I gave them both sleeping pills in the end, just so they could get some rest. They're still out cold.'

The tiny, fair woman let out a sudden sob.

'I feel so awful! I don't know what's happened to my babies, Helen. I don't dare guess!'

Peter sighed, and, going to the stove, gave the pot of soup a half-hearted stir.

'This stuff still warm?'

His wife nodded.

He poured out a bowl, and put it on a tray with a glass of juice and a cupcake, and carried it upstairs.

There was quiet music coming from his son's room, so he guessed he was awake. He knocked on the door, gently. There was no reply.

'Son?' he said quietly, 'you gonna eat?'

There was a long pause, but a voice eventually came from behind the door.

'Mrs O'Brian's down there.'

'Yeah. I didn't think you'd want much company today so I brought you something up.'

There was another pause, then a rustling, then Peter heard the lock on his son's bedroom door sliding across. Still he waited patiently.

'You wanna come in?' muttered the voice.

He opened the door to a darkened bedroom. His son was standing awkwardly in a corner, still wearing the T Shirt and boxers that he had slept in. The clothes that he had left him didn't exactly fit the boy - he was too skinny at the waist and broad at the shoulders - but at least they weren't several sizes too small as all of his old clothes now had to be. On Sunday morning, Peter's son had come up to his nose. Now, on Tuesday afternoon, he stood ever so slightly taller than him. Peter set down the tray on a desk and the young man walked to it, not meeting his father's gaze.

'Thanks,' he managed, sitting at the desk and slowly sipping at the soup.

Somewhere, somehow, the youth had caught a lot of sun. His hair was sunbleached almost white and there were strange tanlines on his wrists. His face was quite flushed. Peter knew that colour on his son's cheeks, and it wasn't caused by sunshine. His eyes were dark and puffy. So that's what the radio was on for.

'Some people called for you', Peter attempted as the boy struggled with the soup, 'the kid with the glasses...'

'Presto.'

'Yeah. He said he was going to the hospital today with your friend Diana. I told him you were still in bed.'

'What about Sheila? and Bobby?'

'I... uh...' Peter noticed the hockey stick in his son's bed. 'I think they needed more rest too.'

His son nodded stoically.

'And the police called, of course.'

The boy stopped eating, put the spoon down and pushed the tray away, looking down at the desk.

'They're gonna call again tomorrow, I'm afraid. They'll want to know what happened to the six of you.'

His son just sighed and continued to look at the desk.

Peter attempted a small laugh.

'Hell, I'd quite like to know myself. Y'know all of this is a bit of a riddle.'

'...riddle...' echoed the boy, sourly.

Peter ran his fingers through his son's hair, tenderly.

'You can tell me, you know. I won't tell anyone you don't want me to. Not the police. Not even your mother, if that's what you want...'

But his son didn't answer.

'Son? Please?'

'Please, Hank?'

'Son...?'


	2. Prologue

Prologue

Seven years pass...

_Crap._

_- The journal of Eric Montgomery (final entry)_

...

It was Spring again, and apple blossom was falling from the trees. He concentrated on this as the taxi cab took him from the hospital. He watched the little pale petals fall and coat the ground beneath in white and tried pretend that the last few hours hadn't happened. But there was the sympathetic pamphlet in his pocket, and the smell of hospital on him, that smell that he had become so used to and never failed to turn his stomach. And there was the memory of it in is mind. Oh yes. The memories. Terrible, sickening moments which flashed past his eyes over and over and over again. Moments not just from that day, but from his whole life. Things he'd wished he'd done, and not done, said and not said. There was one way of drowning them out. But that was stupid. There was another way to get through this.

"Um," he said.

The taxi driver glanced at him in the rear view mirror.

"Are we near Summer Street?"

"It's just the next left," replied the driver. "You wanna go there instead?"

He looked at the apple blossom again, remembering a friendly face. It was synonimous with care, and understanding. And pain. It was a face that had gazed into is eyes in horror as he'd burned.

No. Forget it.

"No," he said, "forget it. Take me home."

...

In a darkly painted bedroom in Summer Street, the owner of a friendly face left tarot cards half laid out and a candle burning on his small desk. He terminated the phone call and stood for a moment, shaking his head in shock and sadness. He wondered briefly what he should do next. Go to the hospital, of course. Maybe he'd need to stay overnight. He grabbed a change of clothes and his toothbrush, and scooped his cards up from the desk. They went everywhere with him recently. The dreams had made him nervous, and he had yet to rule out the Worst. He stalled at his door. He really should tell the others. They'd want to be there. He picked up his phone, and wasn't sure why he felt he had to dial one particular number first. Things had changed in the last few years, after all, and...

The phone at the other end was picked up. A male voice said "Hello?"

"Hank. Have you heard?"

Of course not. The voice at the other end grew worried.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

"You... you gotta come home."


End file.
